Maddie had been up early to work through her pieces and it was a good thing. The morning practice was twice interrupted by Lady Haddon measuring rooms, once by the men delivering the extra chairs and finally by the seamstress working on Lucy’s dress. Maddie could see the girl being twisted into knots and she did not like it. Maddie would be able to carry off her part but Lucy was green at this. Finally at half past eleven the girl burst into tears.
Maddie sat beside her on the piano bench and supplied her with a handkerchief.
“Get your music, girls,” Leighton said. “We are going into the garden to practice, unless your mother is planning on setting up a tent there for the overflow.”
Lucy gave a watery chuckle. “Will it be a disaster, Leighton?”
“Only if they run out of champagne. Trust me, you will do fine. And once you conquer tomorrow, you will know in your own heart that if you practice well, you will always do fine.” Leighton carried his cello to the remote bench and Maddie brought a music stand for him. He used the instrument to accompany the girls on the vocal pieces. They went in for lunch and by then the chaos had died down enough for them to get to the pianoforte. But all the practice time was used by Lucy. Maddie decided Leighton would look a fool if he was the only one not prepared. So she told him the room was his while she went to change for Patience’s tea.
Leighton ran over his own composition a few times. It was short enough to know from end-to-end with no music in front of him. He was satisfied with it and nothing was more fatal than overdoing it. When Maddie came down the stairs, Lucy was with her.
“Are you going too?”
“Yes, we were all invited. Mother says she should not go since there is so much to prepare but on the other hand…”
“She will get to brag about the affair in advance of it,” Leighton guessed. “Maddie, does this mean Patience is part of the half of Bath who were invited?”
“Probably but if we are all going to tea, there may not be an opportunity to ask my sister any questions.” Maddie arched an expressive eyebrow at him.
Lucy looked from one to the other of them in confusion, then started humming her solo as they made their way down the hill.
“That’s right,” Leighton said. “Practice in your mind if you cannot practice anywhere else.”
They arrived after Mrs. Scrope-Nevins, Dr. Murray and Lady Haddon, who had come by carriage. These three were clustered around Patience as she presided over the tea table. There were also four other ladies there whom Leighton recognized from the Pump Room. They occupied the comfy sofa, forcing him, Maddie and Lucy into straight-back chairs in front of the window.
He leaned toward Maddie after they had been served and whispered, “Patience has deliberately invited a flock of people so she won’t have to be alone with us.”
“Well, Mrs. Scope-Nevins is obviously not lurking in the second-best salon.”
“Someone is.”
“That’s just your imagination, Leighton. And I let you worry me with your silly plots.”
“That message wasn’t a silly plot. You decoded it yourself.”
“A mistake. It was meant for someone else.”
“I checked. There was a Mr. and Mrs. Stone at the hotel but they left days ago.”
“It could have been for them. Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. How much time do you think I have to ask questions with all this rehearsing?”
“Leighton, we are going to have to table our investigation until after tomorrow night.”
“What if Lady Scrope-Nevins and this unknown Stone don’t table it. We cannot put the fate of our country after a silly musicale.”
“It is not silly for Lucy. It could ruin her with society if she freezes up.”
“Yes, I know. And why am I arguing with you. We are on the same side.”
“Leighton!” Lady Haddon demanded. “I asked what you are playing tomorrow night.”
“It is an untitled composition.”
“Ah, an original. Wonderful. Come, Lucy. We cannot dawdle here all day. There is much to be done.”
The hapless girl gave them a weak wave as she trailed out after her mother. Dr. Murray and the other ladies took their departure as a hint to leave. Mrs. Scrope-Nevins was a little more dense and Leighton could tell she was getting nervous. Finally, when all the teapots were empty and the trays of cakes had been reduced to crumbs the woman left and Patience shut the door on her.
“I thought she would never leave. I do not know why I invite her.”
“Perhaps to keep us from asking you any embarrassing questions,” Leighton suggested.
Patience sat and faced him, a slight color in her cheeks. “I am sure I can answer any questions you think to put to me.”
“Why did you send me the packet of music with the message in it?”
“Music? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I send you music?”
Maddie watched the deeper flush of crimson ascend her sister’s cheeks and stood up. “You may as well tell us the truth, Patience. We are going to find out anyway.”
Patience threw a nervous glance toward the closed double doors and pressed her hands to her cheeks. “It is better you do not know.”
Leighton growled, stood up and strode toward the double doors, throwing them open to be confronted by a man and a woman. Leighton blinked and a gasp was wrung from him as he stared at the two people rising from the sofa. The tall man with burnished hair was his father and the woman was Maddie’s mother.
“I should like to say I can explain but I…” his father faltered.
The rest of his father’s comment was lost in Leighton’s embrace. When Leighton finally stepped back to look at the man, he saw the gray in the hair, the tiredness of the eyes that used to be so merry. “You are not dead! I am amazed. Your ship did not sink after all.”
“No, I reached America without incident.”
“It was you. You sent that scrap of music.”
“The puzzle? Yes.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me you were alive?”
Mrs. Westlake peeked around them toward her daughters. Leighton heard Maddie gasp and a tea cup crash to the floor. He turned to her with joy in his heart but it was not happiness he saw in her face. She looked tragic.
“What does this mean?” Maddie asked, putting one hand to her throat. “How can this be? You are both dead.”
“They are alive,” Leighton said. “Be glad with me.” He let loose of his father to go to Maddie but she backed away and he feared she might faint. However, Maddie was not pale, a crimson flush suffused her face.
“Now I see. They have been together all this time.”
“Yes but it will be all right,” Leighton assured her.
“But she left me. She left me to be with him.” Maddie turned and ran from the room.
“Maddie, wait,” Patience called.
“I must go after her,” Leighton said, coming back a moment to clasp his father’s hand again. “Promise me you will both stay right here.”
* * * * *
Maddie had slowed to a rapid walk, only occasionally having to dash the tears from her eyes to see where she was going in her progress up the hill toward Marsden House. She had hoped not to call attention to herself. But the most casual observer would know she was distraught. How could her mother have done this to her?
“Maddie, wait,” Leighton called as he strode after her. “You must come back.”
“Why, to watch you make a fool of yourself?”
“But Maddie, you never even gave them a chance to explain.”
“It is obvious. They ran off together, leaving us to carry on all the work.”
“It does look that way but we don’t know and they deserve to be heard.” He took her arm and tried to turn her to look at him.
“Not by me. You inherited an earldom and all the power that goes with it. I had to scrape along as the vicar’s daughter with no hope of a future.” Her voice had dropped to an
intense whisper. “What can she say to me, that she left me to be with her lover?”
“But Patience was living at home, then. Your mother did not leave you alone.”
“Well, that is the way it ended up.” Maddie jerked out of his hold and continued her walk.
“I don’t understand. I would trade everything to have my father back again. And he is back. It’s a miracle. Why don’t you even want to speak to your mother?”
“Because she put her own happiness before mine.”
“But you spoke so kindly of your mother before, when you thought she was dead. We have them back again. Another chance. Do you know how rare that is?”
Maddie stared into his eyes. She saw the joy mixed with his sympathy for her and his total lack of understanding. “A mother’s love should be unconditional.”
Leighton bent his head toward her with that hard stare he used so seldom. “So should a daughter’s.”
“Don’t you understand? She chose her lover over me. And if you persist in associating with them, then any notion of a marriage between us is off.”
“Maddie,” he pleaded. “I know this hurts you more because you were closer to Rachel than your sisters were. Your mother does love you. Why else would she have come back?”
“It’s been too long. I’ve already mourned her. I can’t let her back into my heart to hurt me again.”
“Maddie.” He whispered her name so faintly she had the illusion they were already separated by miles and years and emotions that could never be reconciled. “So you ask me to make the same choice. You’re not being fair, either.”
She turned her back on him and walked toward Marsden House. She did not know when Leighton stopped following her but her one glance backward showed him standing in the street, with a pained expression on his face. The truth of his words hurt almost as much as the pain of seeing her mother. So he had made his choice and it wasn’t her. Leighton was no better than her mother. Very well, she had lived without him before, she could do so again.
* * * * *
Leighton returned to the house. To his relief, found his father and Rachel Westlake having tea with Patience.
“I shall talk to her again tomorrow,” he promised.
Patience poured him a cup and doctored it with cream and sugar. “I knew we shouldn’t have told her.”
Leighton sat down with a sigh. “She will see reason. It was just a shock. At least I am glad you are both alive but what happened?”
His father glanced at Rachel and she nodded. “Our relationship was platonic and would have remained so.”
Rachel gave him a sad kindly smile. “But every kindness your father did me drove my husband into fits of jealousy. Finally one night while Maddie was up at the manor house, my husband accused me of having an affair and put me out of the house.”
Patience stroked her mother’s hand. “You had no choice but to leave then. I know what Papa is like.”
“I would have had nothing but the clothes I stood in, if Patience had not packed a bag for me and sneaked out with it. She was the one to go to…William for help.”
“William?” Leighton asked.
“Yes, my new name,” his father said. “I hitched a team myself and took Rachel to a hotel in Hereford. I decided divorce was the only answer. I’m sure you were always aware that my marriage to your mother was a disaster. She was angry but she didn’t want me and agreed to mediate with the vicar. After Rachel spent three days in Hereford your mother and the vicar finally came to terms.”
“William and I were to move to America and never return to England, except when the divorce proceedings were to be finalized. We agreed, packed and left in the dark of night, planning to fight the legal battles later.”
“And mother sold your horses,” Leighton supplied with a tired sigh.
“Lord no, I hired a brace of grooms in Hereford and took them with us.”
“That’s a relief.” Leighton smiled to think of all those beautiful horses still with his father whom they loved. “So why didn’t you get divorced?”
“The first ship that followed us carried letters from both my wife and her husband. They informed us of our deaths, trapping us on the other side of the Atlantic. They gave out that Rachel had died of a fever and I was lost at sea.
Patience sighed. “But I knew Mother was not dead and maintained a correspondence with her until the war started between England and America.”
“Patience was already engaged to Carter,” Rachel explained. “Maddie was supposed to live with Patience and her husband, not stay with her father. Don’t you see? Westlake broke his word about so many things. My concern for Maddie has been driving me to distraction. I knew he would take all his anger out on her.”
His father ran a hand through his hair. “With the war between England and American preventing travel, we didn’t have much to hold onto except an occasional letter that slipped through on a neutral ship. Now that the world is more or less at peace, we booked passage on a ship bound for France. They left us on the Island of Guernsey and we made our way to Bath.”
Rachel started to cry again. “What have I done? It was better when she thought me dead. Now I have wounded her twice.”
“Do not give up on Maddie just yet,” Leighton said. “She may be a passionate girl but she usually does see reason.”
“But my leaving made Maddie a prisoner and she was alone with him.”
“Still, you are back and everything will be as it was. Well, perhaps not everything.”
“You mistake matters,” his father said. “We have no intention of disclosing our identities or remaining. We came only to see to your welfare and Maddie’s.”
“What about Susan and Amy?”
“You may tell Amy and Ross and Susan when you think she is old enough to know. Better yet, bring her to visit us in America.”
“But you are the Earl of Longbridge and I do not want to be,” Leighton protested.
“After I died, I wrote a codicil to my will leaving your uncle William Stone the lands in Virginia.”
“Yes, so the solicitors informed me. I didn’t know I had an uncle— Oh, I see, uncle.”
“Yes, poor William was born on the wrong side of the blanket but in spite of his shady past, I have acknowledged him.”
Leighton chuckled. “Are you sure about this?”
“I am content as things are, provided you will cross the Atlantic to visit us now and then.”
“Of course we will, Maddie and I and Susan if we can manage it.”
“You seem pretty confident about Maddie forgiving us.”
“This is not the first time she has decided not to marry me. I am getting good at begging forgiveness.”
“Oh really, so you did manage to give her a disgust of you?” Patience asked, staring at him through her pince-nez. “What did you do?”
Leighton laughed. “For one thing I suggested you were engaged in a clandestine affair.”
“What?” Patience shrieked.
Rachel and William chuckled at her outrage.
“Then I thought perhaps you were involved in a spy ring.”
“Now why would you think that?”
“That packet of music with the coded message. You sent it, didn’t you, Father?”
“You are a fanciful boy but yes I sent it. Did you solve it?”
“I made a start but Maddie found the solution.”
Rachel smiled and his father nodded gravely. “Her intuition was always better than yours.”
“And lastly I speculated that Vicar Westlake may have murdered his wife and you, Patience, were covering for him.”
“Truer than you know,” Rachel agreed. “He almost did kill my spirit.”
“And I certainly did a lot of covering up,” Patience said. “What now?”
“Maddie needs time to think this through. I will talk to her tomorrow. You are coming to this musicale?”
“I would not miss it,” Patience said. “I hope to wrangle an invitation for my
friends from America.”
Leighton thought about his father’s lack of appreciation for music and chuckled. “I look to see you there. But I rather hope Maddie does not unless she becomes reconciled to the idea.”
“We will be discreet,” Rachel said.
They talked of the past then, the better moments of it. Leighton was so overjoyed to have his father restored to him that he was strolling home after supper and brandy before he realized he’d forgotten to delve further into the coded music, to ask if there was anything serious behind it. It was a joke, of course. His father would explain things tomorrow.
Chapter Nineteen
Maddie had known if she went to her room, Lucy would be likely to rush in and interrupt her despair. She had been deeply hurt and she just wanted to cry and punch things until the feeling went away. But she was not given to tantrums, so she thought no one would notice if she sat alone in the garden on a bench and wept, not even if she did so for hours.
“Lucy, what is it?” Gifford’s voice cut through the twilight as he tramped toward the house from the stables. “Oh, you are not Lucy.”
“Does she spend a great deal of time crying in the back garden?”
“She seems to cry for no good reason that I know of and she isn’t particular where she does it.”
Maddie thought Gifford might be the reason for some of those tears but he was too obtuse to realize it.
“Well, I have a good reason.”
Gifford sat on the bench beside her and heaved a sympathetic sigh. “And what is that?”
It was a relief to be able to talk to someone—anyone about the injustice. “It’s only that Leighton has betrayed me.”
“Ah, I was not wrong then in thinking there was something between you and Stone.”
Gifford rested his elbows on his knees. “So he is not after Lucy.”
“He never was and I am alone now. Even my sister is against me.”
Gifford nodded, a crease between his brows. “A sore trial for you. Do not think yourself abandoned. When Lucy and I are married, there will always be a place in our household for you.”
“Are you to be married?”
“Yes, well we were until Stone’s grand display of valor. Who would have thought I could be upstaged by a mere music master.”
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